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Thursday, January 29, 2015

Update on Spike in Violence in Omaha

While overall violence has been down, in the past we have seen times when violence spikes for a few days, a week or more. We are in one of those spikes now... We have had 12 homicides and many shootings since Dec. 21st. The police, civic leaders, and groups like Impact One are doing everything they can...The Church needs to do its part and address the spiritual components.

There was a lot of confusion and miss-information regarding the incident at last Sunday's PrayerWalk with three grieving families and well over 100 attending.

We had just finished the First Responders PrayerWalk and were informally talking and ministering to people when people started yelling and running. The gang unit was at the PrayerWalk, and controlled the situation quickly and professionally...I was very impressed and thankful. I felt like God had sent them as guardian angels ...but here is some of the "Rest Of The Story."

Many of the people there including a lot of kids had just made a pledge to the families and to God to do something good to help overcome evil and to give meaning from these deaths to the family.
Romans 12:21 ~ "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

After we finished ministering and praying as a group, one of the ladies on our team spotted a young woman agitating a local gang member regarding a rival gang member who was in the crowd. She went and confronted the young woman. Then a few minutes later the two rival gang members got in each others face and started posturing. That's when people started moving and the commotion started. Some ran away, some grabbed young kids and some moved in...

In the few seconds before the Gang Unit got to the guys a bunch of people grabbed each guy and separated them. There was no violence, no guns, not even a fist thrown. The majority of this group was committed to peace and caring for the grieving families. They were not going to allow violence that day.

What Satan meant for harm, God turned for Good.

The neighborhood stepped up and self-regulated in a area claimed by the Hilltop Crips.

A Stakeholders group is coming together with the local neighborhood alliance, Freedom Church and Compassion In Action who are part of this neighborhood. They will be meeting this Saturday to organize and start taking back these streets.

This incident woke up a bunch of people that are committing to action.

This was the first incident of any kind in over 300 PrayerWalks and Violence Rallies. This incident was a spiritual backlash and evidence that our efforts are seen as a threat to those whose business is violence and the demonic forces behind them.

The civic authorities and police are doing their part, but we the church of Jesus Christ must do our part in meeting the top felt need in Omaha...violence. We have great favor in partnering with our city leaders.

This is spiritual warfare and I expect more manifestations and opposition as we continue. But greater is He who is in us that he who is in the world. The only safe place is where God tells you to be. When you follow our Lord nothing can touch you unless He permits it. We intend to wisely step it up and meet the spirit of violence in the authority given to us by our Almighty God.

In these PrayerWalks God is establishing spiritual beachheads that we need to fortify and expand. There are opportunities to connect needs with ministries and churches which we intend to develop more in the future.

Below is a news report on our Omaha 360 meeting Wednesday following the violence of this last weekend. Please click on link below to see report and video.